Manufacturing operations have it right. If you don’t build quality into a product, people won’t buy it. Toward this end, manufacturing divisions boast of compliance with ISO 900x quality standards and six-sigma quality initiatives. The improvements in operational quality have direct and measured impact on the bottom line.

So why don’t sales operations have the same mindset? Just as improving the quality of calorie burning activities will lose weight, just as improving the quality of manufacturing operations drives product excellence and revenue, improving the quality of sales operations will have direct and measured revenue impact.

Very few organizations annually budget for quality initiatives specific to their sales operations, many are the same folks who implement ISO 900x and six-sigma in their manufacturing operation. You have to wonder why not. Pehaps because the sales trade has been a black art for so long, few executives believe that structured quality initiatives could possibly apply.

But oh they do. A handful of companies are experimenting with implementing lean six sigma type initiatives into their sales operations with dramatic results. Simple changes in simple sales activities, activities that have long been neglected for quality improvement, go a long way. Simple regular measurement of the quality of key sales activities goes a long way. Payback of 50-300x on the dollar are common.

It may take a long time to change the C-level mindset with regard to regularly budgeting for sales operations quality. But in the meantime, please help us beat the drum.

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